TRANSIT the social customs of the people and a new actuating force became evident. Aesthetic reasons for dancing appeared. With the Greeks, dance played an important role and became a deliberate feature of a philosophic scheme of education. The Athenian point of view held that life in this world was the reason for living, and as a result, life was made as abundant and beautiful as was humanly possible. The Greeks revered the beauty of the human form, and dance was the embodiment of its rhythm, harmony, proportion and balance. Dance was regarded as one of the best aids to man's development. Then came the advent of Christianity and its chief characteristic that of other worldliness. The design for living became merely preparation for advent into heaven as a pure soul. The dualistic theory of man was developed. He was composed of two complete and separate entities body and soul. In an attempt to exalt the soul, the body was degraded, tortured, punished and bruised. Dance, because it was beautiful, and because it was physical was supressed. In the period of the Renaissance there came renewed and revitalised interest in the cultures of the past and there were sown the seeds of all of the arts for the future. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a great dance movement spread over all of cultural Europe. It was a dance of the aristocrat, the noble man and his lady. The dance was elegant and aloof, reflecting the narrow and stilted life of the court. It was in this period also that the Ballet was born as part of the lavish theatrical entertainments of the great Italian families. It was performed for the pleasure of kings and enacted by amateurs. Dance had reached the theatre in the form of the Ballet. Here, indeed, was cosmopolitan art. It is a story told in dance and miming with accompaniment of settings, costumes and music and contains the thoughts of literary men, painters, composers, designers, choreographers, dancers and musical performers. Dance had become a spectacle. Russia has been for centuries the stronghold of the Ballet. It was Tsar Alexis who introduced it in the seventeenth century and Peter the Great who established the first Russian court Ballet. The stiff Spanish style continued until Marie Taglioni introduced the pale, delicate, unearthliness of the Romantic Ballet. Many dances of the Romantic period have been discarded, but a few remain in the repertory of even the most modern Ballet Companies. Most of our great composers of music have at one time or another in their careers composed music either to accompany the ballet, or composed music around which the dance was afterward woven. At the time of the Russian revolution the unrest which was manifest in the sociopolitical world was felt also in the dance, and a new era came to ballet. The dance was beginnig to deal with the whole scope of human experience, and although the techniques were kept fairly well intact, they were revitalised and used in new and interesting combination. There is indeed a difference between the stylised stiff Italian ballet which hung its ballerina from wires to assist her to spring high into the air and the modern Ballet in which is depicted the humor, pathos and situations of every nature taken from the world of fantasy and of reality. Even though the classic ballet had bowed to the Romantic and the Romantic to the modern, it was still too stilted and hide-bound for some. Realism and naturalism were running rampant in the artistic world and the dancer along with the painter, the poet and the composer cried to be set free. Convention and formula were tossed to the wind and the artist demanded to create as his emotions dictated. In the field of dance it was Isadora Duncan who, bare-footed with costumes to cover but not enhance, danced her "new dance." Here was challenge. Could dance, bereft of elegant costumes, extravagant settings, and libretto hold its own as an art. Was there creative power enough in the human body to convey meaning and excite feeling without the use of words and pantomine? Could dance become a communicative art? Was bodily movement, in and itself, equal to a place alongside music, poetry and painting as a creative art? Dance is the mother of the arts. Music and poetry exist in time. Painting and architecture in space. But the dance THE INSTRUCTOR DEMONSTRATES A DIFFICULT ROUTINE. MRS. BROWN'S WORK SHOWS THE EFFECTS OF STUDY UNDER WELL-KNOWN MASTERS OF THE DANCE. AUTUMN, 1942 lives at once in time and space. The creator and the thing created, the artist and the work are still one and the same thing. Rythmical patterns of movements, the plastic sense of space, the vivid representation of a world seen and imagined these things man creates in his own body, in the dance, before he uses substance and stone and word to give expression to his inner experiences. The dance breaks down the distinctions of body and soul, of abandoned expression of the emotions and controlled behavior, of social life and the expression of individuality, of play, religion, battle and drama all the distinctions which an advanced civilisation has established. The body, which in ec-stacy is Conquered and forgotten and which becomes merely a receptacle for superhuman power of the soul, and the soul, which achieves happiness and bliss in the accelerated movements of the body is freed of its own weight. There is the need to dance, because an effervescent zest for life forces the limbs from sloth: and the desire to dance, because the dancer gains magic powers, which bring him victory, health and life. In the ecstacy of the dance man bridges the chasm between this and the other world, to the realm of demons, spirits and gods. Captivated and entranced he bursts his earthly chains and trembling feels himself in tune with all the world. This then is the dance of the primitive man and of the modern artist. The modern dance, which claims such artists as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman is truly an art form. The artist thinks, feels, and imagines, and he must communicate through dance his message to the world. The dancer's preparation is a difficult and never ending struggle to educate his body so that his creative genius may find a receptive and effective mode of expression. Movement is the language through which he seeks to hold and sway his audience and leave his mark on their lives. Here again, then, man is dancing his hate and his fears. He is dancing as he feels, unconstrained and uninhibited. His movements are free and light and strong. The variety of his movements is bounded only by his own inability to do more. There are no rules and regulations. As did the primitive man, the modern uses dance as a release for his creative energy and escape from his earthly ties. As education seeks to offer more and more of that which will enable the student to live to the utmost, the creative form of the dance has found a place in most of our institutions of higher learning and in many of the secondary schools. The acceptance of dance as having a great contribution in the educational scheme of things offers an unparralled opportunity. In offering dance as a part of the curriculum, it is neither supposed nor desired that professional dancers shall emerge. It is hoped, rather, that through an introduction to dance the student will come to appreciate another of our art treasures, that he will come to realise the importance and powers of the human body, that the will feel, if only to the smallest degree, the thrill of artistic creation. In the world as it is today, the average person is called upon to bear much suffering and inconvenience. The mental strains and physical drains imposed by a world at war are tremendous, and there should be some avenue of escape. Dance, in the schools, is one agent through which this release for pent up emotions and feelings can be realised while furnishing at the same time many other desirable additions to the education of youth in a free country. Here is a chance for one to become acquainted with his physical self, with an opportunity to portray through it his emotional, intellectual and social self. Here is an art, needing only the human body and a will to try. It offers so much and the rewards are so great. Please accept this invitation to dance. MODERN DANCE LENDS ITSELF IDEALLY TO GROUP INSTRUCTION SUCH AS IS DEPICTED IN THE POSE, RIGHT.